VIII — EASTER FRUITS

Low Sunday

Presence of God. — O Jesus, like Thomas I draw near to you; grant that I may not be unbelieving, but faithful.

Meditation

1 — Today’s liturgy addresses itself in a particular way to the newly baptized who, one week after Easter, laid aside the white garments received at the sacred font. It is precisely to them that the affectionate recommendation of St. Peter is directed, which we read in the Introit of the Mass: “As newborn babes, long for the pure spiritual milk.” In these words we hear the echo of the Church’s maternal solicitude for her children whom she has regenerated in Christ, and above all for those most recently born. But this solicitude is also for us; though baptized shortly after coming into life, it can well be said that each year at Easter, rising again in Christ, we are reborn in Him to new life. Therefore we too must be like “newborn babes,” in whom there is no malice, nor deceit, no pride, nor presumption, but all is candor and simplicity, trust and love. This is a beautiful call to that spiritual childhood which Jesus proposed to us as an indispensable condition for attaining salvation: “unless you turn and become like little children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 18, 3). Every wave of grace, purifying and healing our soul from sin and from its roots, makes us be reborn to new life in Christ, an innocent and pure life that aspires only to the “pure spiritual milk” of Christ’s doctrine, of his love and of his graces. But today the Church wishes in particular to orient our desires toward faith: faith that makes us adhere to Jesus so as to be instructed, nourished, and guided by Him to eternal life. Here too the word of the Master that we meditated last week returns aptly: “He who believes in me, from within him shall flow torrents of living water... springing up to eternal life” (Jn. 7, 38; 4, 14). Let us draw near to Jesus with the simple and sincere faith of children, and He will give us the abundance of his grace, pledge of eternal life.

2 — Today’s Gospel has a wholly particular value for confirming us in faith.

Thomas’s doubt confirms us in faith because, as St. Gregory says, “his unbelief profited us more than the faith of the other Apostles”; if he had not doubted, no man would have “put his finger into the mark of the nails and his hand into the side” of the Lord. Jesus had pity on the Apostle’s little faith, and on ours too, and gave himself not only to be seen, as he had already done with the others, but also to be touched, permitting to Thomas, the unbelieving one, what he had not permitted to Mary Magdalene, the most faithful. From this we understand God’s way of acting: while He does not deny sensible consolations and more or less tangible signs of his presence to souls still wavering in faith, He often leads by wholly dark paths those who have given themselves to Him irrevocably and on whose faith He knows He can count. God is Father: to every soul that seeks Him with a sincere heart He denies not what is necessary to sustain its faith, but He often refuses to the stronger what He grants to the weaker. This is the teaching Jesus gives us: “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Blessed are those who, to believe in God, do not need to see, to touch, do not need sensible signs, but can affirm without hesitation: “Scio cui credidi” (II Tim. 1, 12), I know in whom I have placed my trust and I am sure of Him. Such faith is more meritorious for us because, being founded only on God’s word, it is totally supernatural; and it is more honorable to God because it gives Him full credit, without demanding any proof, but rather perseveres even amid obscurities and the most disconcerting facts, when it almost seems that heaven is closed and the Lord is deaf to our groanings.

Such strong faith is certainly fruit of God’s grace, but we must prepare ourselves to receive it both by imploring it in prayer and by exercising ourselves in faith itself.

Colloquy

My God, give me a pure and simple heart, without malice, without pretense. “O Lord, grant me true purity and simplicity, in my eyes, in my words, in my heart, in my intention, in my works and in all that is interior and exterior. But I would like to know, my Lord, what hinders these virtues in me. I shall tell it to you, my soul, since I cannot make others understand it. Do you know what hinders them? Every least glance that is not according to God, all words not spoken either for God’s praise or for the comfort of neighbor.

“Do you know how you drive these virtues from your heart? You drive them out every time you do not have that pure intention of honoring God and helping your neighbor; you drive them out also when you want to go about cloaking, covering, and excusing your faults, not thinking that God sees all and sees your heart. O Lord, give me true purity and simplicity, because in the soul that lacks them You cannot find your rest” (cf. St. Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi).

O Lord, cleanse my heart and my lips with the fire of your charity, that I may love you and seek you with the purity and simplicity of a child. But give me also the simple faith of children, faith without shadows, without wavering, without useless reasonings; straightforward and pure faith that is satisfied with your word, with your testimony, and in it finds rest without wanting anything else.

“O Lord, what does it matter to me to feel or not to feel, to be in darkness or in light, to rejoice or to suffer, when I can recollect myself in the light created in me by faith? I should rather feel a kind of shame in making distinctions among these things; and when I still feel shaken by them I should despise myself deeply for my little love and look immediately to you, divine Master, to be set free by you. And You teach me that I must exalt you above the sweetnesses and consolations that come from you, and I must be resolved to pass above everything in order to unite myself to you” (cf. E.T. II, 4).